Feature Request

Multi-Stage SOP Approval Workflow Requirement Business Need MDM Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) require a controlled, auditable review and approval process to ensure documents remain accurate, compliant, and approved by the appropriate stakeholders before publication. The current review process involves an SOP Owner, multiple reviewers, and final approvers. The system must support this workflow while maintaining a complete audit trail of all review activities, approvals, comments, and version history. Required Workflow Stage 1: Ownership & Review Notification Each SOP must have an assigned SOP Owner. The SOP Owner is accountable for document accuracy and maintenance. When the document reaches its scheduled review date: The SOP Owner is automatically notified. The SOP status changes to Review Due. The SOP Owner may: Review the document. Make required updates. Submit the document to the reviewer stage. Stage 2: Reviewer Approval Cycle The SOP Owner submits the SOP to a designated group of reviewers. Multiple reviewers must be supported. Each reviewer receives a notification requesting review. Each reviewer must have the ability to: Approve the document. Reject the document. Leave comments or recommended updates. Record the date and time of their decision. If any reviewer requests changes: The SOP is returned to the SOP Owner. Reviewer comments are retained and visible. The SOP Owner makes updates and resubmits. Stage 3: Reviewer Completion Gate The SOP cannot advance until all required reviewers have approved. The system must display: Pending reviewers Approved reviewers Rejected reviewers Reviewer comments Once all required reviewers approve: The document automatically advances to the next stage. Stage 4: Final Approval / Ready to Publish After reviewer approval: The SOP moves to Final Approval or Ready to Publish status. Final approvers receive notification. Final approvers can: Approve for publication Reject and send back for revision Provide comments Upon approval: The document status changes to Published. The publication date is recorded. Audit Trail Requirements The system must maintain a complete audit record for each SOP version. For every review cycle, the following should be stored: SOP Version Number SOP Owner Reviewer names Approver names Approval dates Rejection dates Reviewer comments Approver comments Status history Review completion date Publication date Version History Requirements: | Field | Requirement | | ----------------- | ------------------------------- | | Version Number | Stored for every revision | | Modified By | Name of user making the change | | Modification Date | Date/time stamp | | Review Actions | Approvals, rejections, comments | | Approval Records | Permanent record of approvals | | Reviewer Comments | Retained with version | | Published Version | Identifiable and reportable | The system should provide visibility into: SOPs due for review Overdue SOP reviews SOPs awaiting reviewer approval SOPs awaiting final approval Published SOPs Approval history by SOP Reviewer participation history Audit-ready approval records Success Criteria An SOP review cycle is considered complete only when: The SOP Owner reviews and updates the document. All assigned reviewers approve the document. Final approver(s) approve the document. All approvals, comments, and dates are permanently stored in version history. The SOP is published with a complete audit trail available for governance, compliance, and audit purposes. Key Requirement: The approval workflow must support sequential stages (Owner → Multiple Reviewers → Final Approver → Publish) and provide a permanent, auditable record of every approval, rejection, comment, and version change. This language usually resonates well with software developers because it clearly defines the workflow states, business rules, gate conditions, notifications, and audit requirements without prescribing how they must technically build it.

To ensure high quality articles before publishing we like to have more than one person check the article, currently only one person can be assigned in a workflow so we would like multiple people at this stage. We would like to have a state for there review as well so we can track who completed the review.

We often have multiple reviewers within a review. It would be nice if everyone that was tagged as reviewer could finish the review by pressing a button. Also it would be nice if this information would be visible to the writer so he/she knows who has done it and who needs to reminded of the task. Cherry on top would be if the workflow would then automatically move to the next step. In general it is a request for a bit more automation of the workflow.

We are offering content in German. The issue is that we have several articles facing different sort of issues that are in the draft stage. There is a way to export this list. However, we still have to open each article individually to see what the comment is ... and why it is still in draft. This is very time consuming, especially considering we can't open articles in a new window from the workflow status screen.

The customer would like to have the option to export the details on articles workflow. For example: Created by, Created date, Published by, Published date, WF status and more info.

Have workflow that can be customized based on different contributors, from different department thus meeting their needs and have multi-level review to approver to publisher, Knowledge Contributor will create some "knowledge article" and click submit button - that's all this person should be concerned of instead of selecting who it should go to. Email notification will be sent to the first approver @review/SME. This reviewer/SME will make review/changes and approve or reject. If rejected it goes back to the contributors with comments given to fix the article. If approve, the knowledge article will be sent to the next stage of approver e.g. Dept Manager. The Manager will do review and then approve or reject. If rejected it goes back to SME. If approved, it goes to the Knowledge Manager. Knowledge Manager will get email notification. The KM will review, do the QA/QC and then publisher it and it will appear in the knowledge repository, and people can search for it. Hence KM tool should have this so that level of flexibility or granularity is provided for their way of doing things.

I would like to be able to assign "ownership" of an article to a specific team user account, regardless of its status. Even if published, the article would still "belong" to the assigned user. Then, when a user logs in, he or she should be able to look at a list of the articles they "own" and quickly access them for editing. It would also be good if users could choose to only receive notifications for articles they "own".

Often, there are several articles that move through various stages. Sometimes, just knowing who touched an aritcle last helps speed up the process. For example, there may be 40 articles where there was a small change. But there are another 40 articles that have larger changes that need more elaborate review. If we had the ability to filter articles in a workflow by last modified, it gives us the ability to mass select and publish articles by author.

I would like to add a reviewer in the Workflow designer so that my team members can put their work in "review" and it automatically gets assigned to me. Currently they have to add the reviewer when changing the status but often forget to assign the step.

While we can view the current workflow status of individual articles, there is no way to see the overall review history across multiple articles, including details like number of articles assigned for review, when they were assigned, who reviewed them, and when the reviews were completed. This can only be found by checking each article's workflow history separately. A consolidated view can help to track overall review progress, manage reviewer workloads, and ensure deadlines are met efficiently. Feature functionality: A dashboard or report that tracks: The articles assigned to reviewers. The dates on which reviews were assigned. Review status (pending, in progress, completed). The completion dates of reviews. Current status of article Ability to filter by reviewer, date range, and article category. (This can also help to understand how many articles a person has reviewed over a specific period.) Notifications or reminders for reviews that are approaching their deadlines.